* Describe your first student teaching context (school setting). What school are you at, what are some of its characteristics, and what classes are you teaching, and how are classes scheduled at your school?
My first student teaching context is at North Smithfield Middle School. This school is in a great community and has a lot of experienced teachers, mixed with many people new to the profession. The students seem to have a good sense of school belonging, and are constantly participating in fundraisers or after school activities. The teachers are giving me lots of in sight to not only what goes on while teaching your class, but also what goes on behind the scenes when you are a teacher. I am learning about how to deal with parents, and different methods to have a high quality of classroom management. My Cooperating teacher is very experienced and knows her content extremely well. I am looking forward to learning a lot from her about sceince as well as how to manage a classroom. She runs a strict classroom, but this method is definitely beneficial for me coming in as a student teacher becuase most of the children are extremely well behaved. The class that I am teaching is 8th grade General Science. I have already taken over all 5 classes from my cooperating teacher and am rolling along just fine. My teacher definitely assists me with some classroom management, and gives me pointers at the end of the day to help improve my teaching. We currently student teaching to learn get constructive critisism from our teachers to make ourselves better teachers. Since my teacher is a team leader she does not have a homeroom. I teach 5 periods a day, straight from 7:40 am to 11:56 am. The classes are 47 minutes long and the students have 4 minutes in between each class to get to their next class on time. All 5 periods are the same prep.
* Explain one of your "stealth" objectives that you want to accomplish with your students and why.
One of my stealth objectives is to make the students better note takers. The first three days I was giving notes to the students, and most of them were taking them, but some of the students I noticed were not writing down all of the notes. I tried doing different things, like descreatly tapping on the students desk as I walked by to let them know that I saw them not taking the notes, or even standing near the student and saying things like "the quizzes I give will definitely come from the notes I am giving in class" or " writing these notes down will help you complete your homework easier and absorb the material better". Over the weekend I had time to think and I kinda forgot that these children are only middle school students, they are 12-14 years old, many of them may not be responsible enough to take notes unless they are forced to do so. So I came up with a little scheme to get the students to write down all of the notes. In class on Monday I told the students that I will be checking their notebooks, and giving them a homework grade based on the completion of their notes. This is just a way to motivate the students to take all of the notes, I have informed them that the amount of notes I am giving them is miniscule compared to what they will be receiving in both High School and College. I just wanted them to get in the routine of taking all the notes, and realizing how important notes are for the students learning.
* Describe your first student teaching context (school setting). What school are you at, what are some of its characteristics, and what classes are you teaching, and how are classes scheduled at your school?
My first student teaching context is at North Smithfield Middle School. This school is in a great community and has a lot of experienced teachers, mixed with many people new to the profession. The students seem to have a good sense of school belonging, and are constantly participating in fundraisers or after school activities. The teachers are giving me lots of in sight to not only what goes on while teaching your class, but also what goes on behind the scenes when you are a teacher. I am learning about how to deal with parents, and different methods to have a high quality of classroom management. My Cooperating teacher is very experienced and knows her content extremely well. I am looking forward to learning a lot from her about sceince as well as how to manage a classroom. She runs a strict classroom, but this method is definitely beneficial for me coming in as a student teacher becuase most of the children are extremely well behaved. The class that I am teaching is 8th grade General Science. I have already taken over all 5 classes from my cooperating teacher and am rolling along just fine. My teacher definitely assists me with some classroom management, and gives me pointers at the end of the day to help improve my teaching. We currently student teaching to learn get constructive critisism from our teachers to make ourselves better teachers. Since my teacher is a team leader she does not have a homeroom. I teach 5 periods a day, straight from 7:40 am to 11:56 am. The classes are 47 minutes long and the students have 4 minutes in between each class to get to their next class on time. All 5 periods are the same prep.* Explain one of your "stealth" objectives that you want to accomplish with your students and why.
One of my stealth objectives is to make the students better note takers. The first three days I was giving notes to the students, and most of them were taking them, but some of the students I noticed were not writing down all of the notes. I tried doing different things, like descreatly tapping on the students desk as I walked by to let them know that I saw them not taking the notes, or even standing near the student and saying things like "the quizzes I give will definitely come from the notes I am giving in class" or " writing these notes down will help you complete your homework easier and absorb the material better". Over the weekend I had time to think and I kinda forgot that these children are only middle school students, they are 12-14 years old, many of them may not be responsible enough to take notes unless they are forced to do so. So I came up with a little scheme to get the students to write down all of the notes. In class on Monday I told the students that I will be checking their notebooks, and giving them a homework grade based on the completion of their notes. This is just a way to motivate the students to take all of the notes, I have informed them that the amount of notes I am giving them is miniscule compared to what they will be receiving in both High School and College. I just wanted them to get in the routine of taking all the notes, and realizing how important notes are for the students learning.